04 Aug 2013

Government is compelled to correct a number of distortions contained in a front page article on Friday August 2’s Guardian newspaper on ‘digital disaster.’

The government has described as untrue allegations that mobile phones and TV will be useless after 2015 and that people will be forced to buy TVs from Japan only.

A statement from the Office of the Presidents says the Guardian’s reference to 2015 presumably reflects the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Radio Region 1 (Europe, Africa and parts of Asia) target for achieving analogue switch off, that is full migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television broadcasting.

Further, it says in this respect, as the reporters at the Guardian have been informed and otherwise should by now understand, most existing TV sets could be enabled to receive digital terrestrial transmissions through the provision of decoders or set top boxes. 

In the case of Botswana, this means the use of decoders, such as those that were on display last week, which enable one’s TV set to access ISDB-T signals in 8MHz.

The statement also says the need for some form of decoder would, moreover, remain no matter what DTT standard Botswana or any other country adopted, for example, all South African TV sets will need DVB-T2 decoders in 8 MHz.

It says that such decoders are not, however, necessary for consumers who choose to receive their TV signal via satellite.

It further states various surveys suggested that the majority of local consumers have already opted for satellite rather than terrestrial reception, be it via DSTV or other decoders on the market such as the philabao.

The statement also says notwithstanding the absurd Guardian headline to the contrary, digital migration has no bearing on the functionality of mobile phones and what is true is that the country’s adoption of the ISDB-T standard will greatly facilitate terrestrial TV reception on mobile devices for those who desire it.

The ISDB-T equipment is already manufactured in countries throughout the world, just as DVB-T/T2 equipment is manufactured in Japan while this is because of electronic equipment are technologically neutral.

However, the Guardian article also contained a myth that SADC experts decided on DVB-T2 as a single standard while in fact the SADC Council of Ministries responsible for broadcasting and telecommunications at a meeting in Lusaka 2010, decided that member states were free to adopt any other standard than DVB-T2 with MPEG4 compression as long as they remained with the Geneva 2006 master plan for regional spectrum allocation.The statement says the post Lusaka position of Botswana was that it would carry out its own testing to determine which standard to opt for while the process was subsequently carried out by Botswana’s technical experts, in consultation with leading international authorities, resulting in their recommendation that Government adopt ISDB-T.  ENDS